Me Too Movement Confronts an Ancient Problem

Sexual conflict pervades nature as well as the workplace.

More than a third of female workers (35%) report being sexually harassed at work, explaining why the #MeToo movement is so influential. Women so traumatized may suffer serious effects from anxiety and on careers. But why is the problem so common?

Conflict between males and females over sexual access crops up all over the animal kingdom, from scorpion flies with their specialized claspers for forcible mating to praying mantis females eating their mates.

Sexual harassment at work is generally not this extreme and typically involves some quid pro quo such as a fast food restaurant manager demanding sexual favors in return for more favorable shift assignments for an employee.

Males are generally more eager to mate than females (known as Bateman's principle) because females invest more in offspring than males do.

Amongst humans, the conflict often plays out as men wanting intercourse earlier in a relationship than women do. Men have often used social power to extract sexual favors, so that those close to the top of the tree often have an unjustified sense of entitlement.

That such issues are widespread in nature does not justify coercive sexuality but establishes the context in which it may be more fully understood, and corrected.

Social Status and Sexual Access to Women

High status men are more attractive to women for various reasons, even in the Internet age, judging from research into online dating preferences (1).

From a practical perspective, women who marry wealthy men have greater access to economic resources that makes it easier to raise children, especially given that mothers pay a career price for devoting themselves to raising youngsters.

The reproductive options of high status men were not limited to marriage, even in the rigidly monogamous societies of European history. Laura Betzig describes many sexual privileges accorded to wealthy men (2). In some feudal societies, the lord of the manor was entitled to spend the first night with each of the brides in his parish. Moreover, the design of medieval homes probably facilitated sexual access by the squire to single servant women living in his household.

Scions of the nobility often abducted peasant women for sexual gratification. Such crimes were rarely prosecuted and the worst perpetrators were sometimes priests and clerics who were nominally celibate (3).

Abusive relationships between men and women are exacerbated by status inequality, as illustrated by allegations against theater director director Israel Horovitz.

This phenomenon is all too familiar today and the biggest culprits are men of power and privilege. Highly prominent men took sexual liberties with their employees and used money to intimidate, and silence, the victims.

All power relationships are relative, and lower-level managers in the fast food industry may abuse their short-term employees by obtaining sexual favors in return for giving a woman more hours of work

As women climb professional and business ladders, such inequalities of power shrink and women can both expect, and receive fairer treatment at work. Being treated more fairly at work does not mean that all the problems of masculine sexual assertiveness will disappear overnight.

Humans follow a similar courtship protocol to other species where females attract and males pursue and this pattern favors masculine assertiveness.

Men Approaching Women

For most mammals, females attract mates using olfactory cues that signal readiness to mate. For humans, much of the signaling is visual. As a group, women are substantially more physically attractive than men are (whether evaluated by female or male raters), reflecting an evolutionary history where men who selected young, highly fertile mates were more reproductively successful (4).

This simple fact has a number of practical implications, each of which are relevant to sexual harassment. One is that women use their appearance to attract partners, whether by exploiting their inherent beauty, or artificially enhancing it through clothing, makeup, or flirtatious behavior. Moreover men pay a great deal of attention to women's appearance. Women who are unusually attractive can receive a great deal of unwanted attention that can be bothersome, or even seem threatening.

In a work setting, courtship behavior is considered inappropriate so that male and female employees are expected, and now legally required, to inhibit their sexual feelings. Men are expected to be reserved in their approaches to female co-workers. For their part, women are expected to be restrained in their dress and seductive behavior.

Such restraint frequently breaks down in practice and there are many office romances. When men stumble, it is labeled sexual harassment. When women lapse, there is generally no legal issue unless they require sexual favors of men they supervise, which is rare, but their careers can suffer from seeming unprofessional.

Gender conflict at work likely has a hormonal influence that is under emphasized by most scholars.

The timing of sexual maturity in males is linked to a surge in testosterone and men are significantly more aggressive, and more reckless, in early adulthood when their testosterone levels are highest (5,6). Men are responsible for most of the violent crime during this phase of their lives, including violent sexual assaults. Interestingly, contemporary women are just as physically aggressive as men in relationships perhaps more so - but their aggression is less damaging.

When men divorce, they become more active in dating, their testosterone levels rise, and they are more likely to commit violent crimes (7). High social status of primates is correlated with testosterone levels and dominant individuals are more sexually active.

Of course, high status men are responsible for much sexual harassment because they have the means of bending others to their will.

None of this is intended to justify the abuse of female workers by bosses or mentors. But it can help us to understand why some men act as though their workplace subordinates were their sexual property. Just because men benefited from sexual assertiveness in the past does not mean that this cannot change: it will change and is already changing before our eyes.​

No one cares about non-celebrities, and since virtue-signaling hollywood bozos are the ones lecturing the rest of us, their downfall is all the more satisfying.

Actually, a lot of people do. You're just choosing the bozo yardstick of your TV set lamestream media you're glued to all day, apparently. Yeah, duh, the girl at the office down the street isn't going to be on the news.

"Males are generally more eager to mate than females (known as Bateman's principle) because females invest more in offspring than males do." Bateman's principle doesn't actually apply to humans. Its true that men compete against each other for access to women. But women also compete against each other for access to men. Source: "The Ape That Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences?" By Steve Stewart Williams and Andrew G Thomas DOI: 10.1080/1047840X.2013.804899

If it's rong for powerful men to proposal women. Asking sexual favours in exchange for career boosts and other influential favours. Than what about women doing the opposite. Should a woman be sued for sexual misconduct when she flirt's with her boss? Should she be fired on the spot? Seems only fair that we are consistent. Why should it be okay for a woman to use her sexuality to get favours. If it's not okay to give favours in exchange for her sexuality. And i'm speaking from experience when i say that female managers do the same dam thing. I had female managers trying to have sex with me in the office. I'm a good looking guy. Women often behave just as bad towards me. As men behave towards attractive women. But that's okay? If women want to be equal. Than we should treat them equal consistently. And not give them a pussy pass. Either this behaviour is rong for both sexes. Or it's okay. We can't have two sets of rules. While saying that we are equal.

Sexual harassment is not men "stumbling" with office romances. It's a bunch of creepy men - usually fat, ugly and/or old - creeping on women that they'd never have a chance with in a million years. Normal men don't get off on cheap cop-a-feels and assaults. Only the weirdos do.

I have to agree that some of the #Metoo accusations aren't merely men competing for "sexual access". The amount of emotional pain and confusing inflicted by Weinstein on many of the women goes beyond trying to impress and seduce. It seems there's an element of outright sadism, perhaps "getting even" for all the rejection Weinstein got in high school, or whatever.

In the case of Bill Cosby, I have an even harder time seeing how drugging women into sleep and doing whatever has anything to do with a normal desire to win over a lot of women.

If the theory is that men just want to have sex with willing and beautiful young women using their "resources", I would think Cosby and Weinstein could have done so much more effectively and safely with escorts. You don't have to pay an escort $150,000 to stay quiet about the encounter you had with her! Obviously, it seems to me, these guys got some sort of extra thrill out of making the young women feel like crap.

You write about the case of Bill Cosby drugging women, using their resources.

Fortunately criminal trials examine evidence to try to establish the facts of what happened.

I am a chaste and celibate young man and wouldn't think of drugging a women to the have sex with her but from what I have read in the papers, it is quite common for people to smoke dope and to have sex thereafter. Or to have a few glasses of wine and have sex thereafter. Or to take cocaine, each party having a few lines. Or to take any one of a number of drugs to enhance the moment, repress anxiety etc.

Have you considered that Bill Cosby had access to party drugs and suggested to the women he slept with that they should enjoy this or that drug during the course of an evening.

I know that it is pernicious and disgusting but this kind of drug peddling is very very common in life and advertised so - look at all the ads for wines and spirits and beers.

In my home there are no wines or spirits or beers because I do not ply my guests with drugs so their judgement is never impaired. And especially for my own judgement - I would never want to have sex when I was drunk because I couldn't be sure whether I gave consent or not. This is, of course, all hypothetical because as I said, I am chaste and I don't have alcohol in my home. But this form of drug peddling is a huge industry throughout the world - everybody seems to offer their guests drinks before, during and after meals.

Back to Bill Cosby.

Powerful men will always have the resources (as you put it) to get their own way and there will always be women who are attracted to powerful men and want to engage with them. Problem is when one or other party is disappointed. In Bill Cosby's case. he might just cease contact. And the woman involved, filled perhaps with disappointment and shame, may then cry foul and blame out - 'he drugged me', forgetting that she was a willing participant.

I could go on but I'll end with your last point - "Obviously, it seems to me, these guys got some sort of extra thrill out of making the young women feel like crap". Well, it seems to me that posters called 'anonymous' get some sort of thrill out of making other people feel like crap with their rushed judgements.

There is/was something called due process, something which is being extinguished in the Salem atmosphere of today.

You write about the case of Bill Cosby drugging women, using their resources.

Fortunately criminal trials examine evidence to try to establish the facts of what happened.

No, actually, criminal trials are very rare in the case of harassment, and they rarely establish fact, BECAUSE -- in most cases, what they establish is merely that there isn't enough evidence to force a conviction in court, not the facts. Harassment is often deliberately done in a fashion as to leave no evidence sufficient to stand up in court, and that doesn't mean, as you seem to suggest, that just because there is no good evidence, it's not a fact.

If all you wanted was to establish a likelihood of facts, you would do it by the mere statistical observation that many independent women have made the same accusation against Bill Cosby. That's a powerful statistical statement, though it's a kind of observation that won't work in court in most cases without a special argument and circumnstances.

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Have you considered that Bill Cosby had access to party drugs and suggested to the women he slept with that they should enjoy this or that drug during the course of an evening.

I'll forgive you for you apparently haven't read the details of what Cosby repeatedly did, over and over again, with many women. They were out cold.

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I know that it is pernicious and disgusting but this kind of drug peddling is very very common in life and advertised so - look at all the ads for wines and spirits and beers.

No, not the total knockout that Cosby did with many women. Very different from the MO of other harassers. Very different. Creepy in fact.

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Powerful men will always have the resources (as you put it) to get their own way and there will always be women who are attracted to powerful men and want to engage with them. Problem is when one or other party is disappointed. In Bill Cosby's case. he might just cease contact. And the woman involved, filled perhaps with disappointment and shame, may then cry foul and blame out - 'he drugged me', forgetting that she was a willing participant.

You're rationalizing to the extreme. Way too many women with the same story, and intelligent ones at that. And some made it VERY CLEAR that they had no intention of doing anything sexual with him. And if your theory is right, virtually all powerful men would have the same story of accusations from dozens and dozens of women. They do not.

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I could go on but I'll end with your last point - "Obviously, it seems to me, these guys got some sort of extra thrill out of making the young women feel like crap". Well, it seems to me that posters called 'anonymous' get some sort of thrill out of making other people feel like crap with their rushed judgements.

I'd say you indeed are making quite a rush judgement here, basically rationalizing Bill Cosby totall off the hook. Amazing.

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There is/was something called due process, something which is being extinguished in the Salem atmosphere of today.

Actually, no. Due process applies to whether you go to jail or not. It does not apply to being expelled from the Academy, getting honorary degrees revoked, or getting fired. Any employer in his right mind is going to, and should, fire an employee with dozens of independent harassment accusations from women. Period. He does not get a day in court before the company can fire him.

There is/was something called due process, something which is being extinguished in the Salem atmosphere of today.

And don't make the blunder of saying that just because Weinstein has 90 accusers, it's a "Salem atmosphere" that is somehow less credible than having a single accuser. Even in Saudi Arabia, two women are as credible as one man in court. But with you, apparently, 90 are even less credible because that makes it a "Salem atmosphere". The more women who speak up together, the less you can believe them, right?

That's the biggest problem with this me too crap. Feminist are now running the show. And it seems their goal is to abolish due process for men. It might have started like a genuine thing. But it's not anymore. Feminist have highjacked this movement. And it has become something sinister. All it takes to destroy a man's life. Is some baseless accusation on the internet. This is not right. We should not except this. Due process is to important.

That's the biggest problem with this me too crap. Feminist are now running the show.

No, they haven't. Support it. You can't.

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And it seems their goal is to abolish due process for men.

Due process is not required for firing a person. If 20 women come forward at a company complaining a manager has harassed, he should be fired. Period. He does not get "due process" any more than the management deems necessary. And when 20 women come forward, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that they are all "colluding" and "conspiring" with "lies" to get him fired. Period.

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It might have started like a genuine thing. But it's not anymore. Feminist have highjacked this movement. And it has become something sinister. All it takes to destroy a man's life.

"Destroying a life" is pretty much what happens to a lot of these women, doofus, not the men. Weinstein actually did end the career of countless women for resisting.

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Is some baseless accusation on the internet. This is not right. We should not except this. Due process is to important.

No, when 20 women come forward (Trump) or 90 (Weinstein), it is HIGHLY unlikely that it's "baseless". And again, due process is not a "right" you get for keeping your job. In fact, in many jobs, you can be fired for just not showing up on time, never mind having 20 women saying you've harassed them.

You're pretty badly confused about "due process", which is a term used to describe your right to keep you out of jail, not in a job.

"Due process is not required for firing a person. If 20 women come forward at a company complaining a manager has harassed, he should be fired. Period. He does not get "due process" any more than the management deems necessary."

Actually, it's exactly on target, and it's in fact what's happening at many companies right now. The reality is that when 20 women come forward to accuse one person at work no sane manager would keep that person for liability reasons.

And it's common knowledge that due process is a legal term referring to your rights in court to stay out out of jail. You do not get your time in court to prove your innocence before you can be fired. You do have the right after you've been fired to sue the women to try to get your job back. But when 20 women have accused you that's an uphill battle. One example is President Trump, who has threatened to sue all the women accusing him. But so far he has sued none of them, and he never will.

Come on. There's a Salem atmosphere around this hole me too thing. How can you not see that? It's totally out of control. And it's going to have great negative consequences for both men and women.

Actually, there isn't. Your poor grasp is making you think that you can compare a bunch of people in a small town who are cowed into agreeing with a few powerful local people, with no recourse for disagreeing comfortably, with hundreds of independent, intelligent, credible women who can openly speak for themselves.

It really does seem that you're claiming that if a man has one accuser, it's a he-said-she-said thing and so who's to say it's real, and if she can't prove it, which in most cases she can't because the guy was careful to make sure he harassed only in a private setting, then the guy gets off scott-free. But if 90 women accuse a man, then they as a group are EVEN LESS CREDIBLE because it all seems like a "Salem atmosphere". So yeah, great reasoning there -- the more women complain, the more they're probably lying.

Matt Damon had it exactly right. Rape means you go to prison. Any non-internal contact is creepy if not wanted...but not a felony. And if a woman considers it unwanted she should feel free to meet it with either mace or a good right hook.

I think what we need is for companies to have one division of genteel behavior, while the other is made up of men and women who are ok with lascivious behavior. Because what's not ok is to suppress people. Give everyone a place where they can feel comfortable.

Matt Damon had it exactly right. Rape means you go to prison. Any non-internal contact is creepy if not wanted...but not a felony. And if a woman considers it unwanted she should feel free to meet it with either mace or a good right hook.

Not realistic. A guy twice her size, as Weinstein was in many cases because he preyed on young skinny girls, would not be a good candidate for a good right hook or mace. If your aim is off, as it likely will be, and the guy loses his temper, you could lose your life quite easily. Or as in the case of Weinstein in particular, you would not work in Hollywood -- he'd blacklist you from everything, and he could, and he did in some cases.

As a general suggestion, your "solution" is laughable.

Also, as you can see from other people here, they say men deserve "due process", which basically means that even if you are actually sexually assaulted, your chances of having that proven in a court resulting in conviction is almost impossible -- the vast majority of sexual accusations never make it that far because the crime often produces no evidence.

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I think what we need is for companies to have one division of genteel behavior, while the other is made up of men and women who are ok with lascivious behavior. Because what's not ok is to suppress people. Give everyone a place where they can feel comfortable.

I'm guessing the lascivious section is going to be all guys, what they call a "sausage fest".

If women's bodies are adapted to have an clear effect on men, then no women exposing her body in any way, is innocent, and no man responding would be a harasser. As anything sexual is undeniably sexual.

Females do not choose

Sexual dimorphism reveals the female as the stimuli and men as the receptor of that stimuli(man is sexual). To be stimuli means that she cannot be the chooser unless she is a prostitute choosing a client. Sex is temporal, therefore any kind of female choice would also be very temporal contradicting so natural selection.

Man and woman do not work together except to cause copulation

The only reason to mix both sexes is for MATING, having them working together is abnormal, unnatural, forced, and implies pretending that females are not harassing the male by using her sexual organs(exhibitionism) to get favors.
This also brings the problem that women is not creating her own spaces, her own technology and opportunities, but that she is demanding those from men,for free, through equality, which requires stealing from men through the government.
The correct name for this is "parasitism".

As a general statement, not the case. You've pretty much undermined the credibility of the rest of your post with that statement. I'm prepared to expect the rest of your post to be MRA claptrap.

First of all, exhibitionism is in a social context. There is no such thing as an act that can be classified objectively as that without a context. People from religious conservative societies in the mideast might consider wearing summer walking shorts and a tank top to be "exhibitionism" because in their society, women wearing anything less than a "burka" are "asking for it". So, when that man visits the USA, what you then have is a man who, by your statement, can rightfully consider women dressed normally by USA standards, to be illegally "harassing" him.

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If women's bodies are adapted to have an clear effect on men, then no women exposing her body in any way, is innocent, and no man responding would be a harasser. As anything sexual is undeniably sexual.

You're demonstrating a lack of understanding of evolution. It's also the case that men's vision has adapted to be attracted to females, simply because men who are not attracted to the way females ALREADY LOOK, will be quickly weeded out of the gene pool. So the reality is that it works both ways. And, incidentally, you're also incorrectly assuming (perhaps because you're basing it to much on your own personal turn-ons) that men are only attracted to women "exposing" themselves. Many men are very much attracted to women who are clothed in certain ways, and some even have fetishes for dresses that cover a lot of the body, if not all of it. And as some men have said, they'd be attracted to women even if they were wearing baggy sackcloth. Believe me, men in countries where women wear burkas are strongly attracted to even a slight momentary exposure of a female ankle -- or just a bare knee (yes, I've personally heard that). It has to do with your social context.

On the other extreme, men in Scandinavia hardly even take notice of young women in public city parks who sunbathe topless on warm summer days. But American male tourists stare with their jaws dropped. And so those women are not harassing men by Scandinavian standards even though they are "exposing" in ways that would be considered very provocative even by USA standards, never mind mideastern conservative religious standards. Thus, again demonstrating the absurdity of your statement.

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Females do not choose

Completely wrong.

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Sexual dimorphism reveals the female as the stimuli and men as the receptor of that stimuli(man is sexual). To be stimuli means that she cannot be the chooser unless she is a prostitute choosing a client. Sex is temporal, therefore any kind of female choice would also be very temporal contradicting so natural selection.

You have it completely backwards. Prostitutes, especially street prostitutes, generally are not that choosy. Women, on the other hand, generally are, especially when it comes to sex. For your theory to be correct, it would need to be the case that women never reject the sexual advances of men, and that is a patently absurd notion.

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Man and woman do not work together except to cause copulation

Are you a doofus, or just trolling absurdities?

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The only reason to mix both sexes is for MATING, having them working together is abnormal, unnatural, forced, and implies pretending that females are not harassing the male by using her sexual organs(exhibitionism) to get favors.
This also brings the problem that women is not creating her own spaces, her own technology and opportunities, but that she is demanding those from men,for free, through equality, which requires stealing from men through the government.
The correct name for this is "parasitism".

The biggest bunch of naive claptrap I've ever heard. You don't get out of your dorm room much, do you? If I had read that dumb paragraph first, I wouldn't have responded it's so stupid. I fell for your troll comment. LOL